I was going to do the course in Salmon Arm, an hour and a half west of 'home' because they had the next available course but, being a 3 day course, that would require long commutes or staying overnight, adding considerably to the expense of the course which, at $225, was already quite costly. So I booked my course in Revelstoke for the weekend of June 1-3 and waited the month that I had to. That actually fitted quite neatly with my plans to be away for much of May at a meditation centre in Merritt for 6 days and in Nova Scotia for 10, meaning I could leave the bus in Vernon at Trevor's yard until test was passed after I got back from my break then go and collect following passing the test, avoiding any storage fees in Revelstoke that I might be liable for.
So this weekend was the training and tests. There were 3 sessions that were supposed to follow this schedule:
Friday night - 6-10pm
Saturday - 8am-4pm
Sunday - 8am-4pm
I turned up at the local campus of the Okanagan College at 5.45 and found our instructor, Don Herring, a retired trucker of around 70, chatting with another student. He was friendly and chatty and we joked about not having a 6-pack, it being Friday night and everything. The rest of the class of 12 rolled in by 6 then we were taken outside to unload his bitchin' '55 GMC truck-box trailer of the brake system mock-up that he uses as a teaching aid. Three 4'x4' boards mounted on stands and 5 crates of brake components and connecting air hoses.
Once that was in the classroom we were left to start reading the ICBC training manual while he assembled the mock-up. Once that was done then properly introduced himself and started by talking about how we'd find a lot of contradictions between what he would teach, the ICBC manual and the online practice tests. Awesome! There's nothing like consistency when you're trying to learn something and it sounded like we'd get nothing like consistency! I was pretty ready for bed, still adjusting from Nova Scotia time, by the time we wrapped up at 9.15, 45 minutes early and left with instructions to be back at 8. Ran thru the online test a couple of times that night and in the early morning and sure enough, there were all kinds of inconsistencies in information from Don and the manual.
Saturday morning involved being taken thru various set-ups of different arrangements of braking system on the mock-up - single and dual systems, single unit trucks and semi & trailer combinations. We also did 4 multiple choice quizzes that contained similar questions to those we would be asked in the final ICBC exam at the ICBC office after the course. Afternoon was spent in the Town Works yard being introduced to a real truck with real air brakes and being shown how to do the brakes component of a pre-trip inspection. Once that was done we each took a turn to go thru the steps with plenty of prompting from Don. We were all done by 2 and then sent on our way, a couple of hours early.
Sunday began at 8, involved a quick run thru of the main points followed by another multiple choice practice test but a little more serious than the previous. At one point, after being berated for 'making things complicated' when I was simply trying to decipher the myriad similar and conflicting terms used, I pointed out that it was ridiculous to teach a course with the material provided being so confusing and contradictory. If I failed I was going to take it higher. I later found the ICBC manual suffered inconsistencies between passages, calling an air brake chamber that, an 'air chamber' and a 'brake chamber' in a couple of paragraphs! While we picked letters Don started filling out paperwork to show ICBC that we'd completed the Pre-trip section of the course then, as I'd finished first in less than 10 minutes, called me up to check my answers. I got a couple wrong out of 25 but a pass is 80% of answers correct so I was confident I'd do OK in the real test.
That done, we had only to disassemble the mock-up board and we were done, at 11 - 5 hours early! I didn't mind a bit as I was feeling quite tired, had a bunch of things I wanted to do and was bored of brakes! I thanked Don for his work and cycled home.
Monday came too quickly - I was back to work after 3 weeks off - but it meant I could get to ICBC and get tested. That was the first thing I did after a quick revision session over breakfast. The nice lady at the counter took my $20 test fee then sat me down at a computer screen for the final multiple choice session. Again, was over in less than 10 minutes. A couple of questions were completely new to me but I followed logic and only got one of 21 wrong (out of a possible 25) and that was it, I was done! Passed!
Got my picture taken, paid another $17 to have the endorsement added to new driving licence card, and I was free to leave and go collect my bus. That would happen on Tuesday thanks to a series of fortunate events including my current employer being off-site for the day and a ride to Vernon appearing on a local Facebook rideshare page for early in the morning (exactly what I wanted so I could get it, and get back quickly and out of any rush-hour, rather than the only Greyhound service of the day which didn't leave until mid-afternoon). More nods from Mr Universe.
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